Virtual meetings

Question

As our PC has just announced that their May meeting will be a virtual one and that the Annual Parish meeting will be postponed I find myself in an area of apparent lack of understanding.

Whilst it is appreciated that PC meetings required a change in legislation (i.e. meetings held in public) to allow for virtual meetings surely the Annual Parish Meeting needs no such legislation.

Because the annual meeting is NOT a parish council meeting there is nothing stopping it being a virtual meeting. The fact that the PC is required to organise, advertise and fund the annual parish meeting does not  give them the power to postpone or cancel. The chair of the PC can still chair the meeting as required and reports can still be made and questions asked virtually.

Any observations on this apparent" throwing the baby out with the bathwater"?

Answer 1

The annual meeting of the parish can be called by one of the following methods:

1. By the chair of the council
2. 2 parish councillors or
3. 6 local electorrs

There is nothing stopping the 6 electors calling the meeting but it would seem that the general view of councils is that the annual meeting of the parish is a meeting that can be cancelled with no legal backlash and therefore, before the allowance of virtual meetings, a large number of councils did just that in order to follow social distancing guidelines.

If you have questions for the council, just ask them at the public participation session of the full council meetings....

Comments

Irrespective of the legalities I can’t see how logistically you could organise an Annual Parish meeting online

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I agree Jules, the parish meeting is not a formal meeting of the parish council and mostly it is full of presentations and summaries of the year just gone past.  It is not a meeting to hold the parish council to account - that should be done on a regular basis when required.  It was the first meeting we cancelled as it bore no relation to the general running of parish council business.